1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film video player/printer. More particularly, the invention relates to a film video player/printer for facilitating the composing of an optical print, based on a film image shown on a video display.
2. Description Relative to the Background Art
Cropping is a photographic printing technique in which a photofinisher effectively eliminates a portion of a photographic original, e.g. color negative film, in order to print only a specific portion of the original image. A professional photographer routinely uses cropping and other photofinishing techniques, such as making prints in one format (either horizontal or vertical) from an original in the opposite format, to print pictures of maximum interest and visual impact. Amateur photographers, who do their own printing, likewise employ cropping and format converting to improve their prints.
A commercial photofinisher makes these services available to improve customer prints, but the services are used infrequently with mixed results. A photographic customer encounters a problem in identifying to the photofinisher exactly what part of the original is to appear in the print. The problem is aggravated, of course, because the customer often has not had the benefit of seeing either the original or a sample print.
It is believed that photographic prints could be improved considerably if customers were provided with a convenient way of composing a picture, cropped as desired, in either or both formats, prior to deciding upon the final print format and composition.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,924, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses a photographic system comprising a printer for use with a film video player. A video player control panel serves for magnifying a photographic film image and for cropping the film by selectively displaying only a portion of the magnified image on a video monitor such as a standard television receiver. When the video display is composed as desired, a recorder applies coded magnetic indicia to the film, specifying the selected magnification and cropping coordinates. The printer of the system includes a magnetic reader for reading the coded indicia, to provide for the proper printing position and magnification of the film, to make an optical print of the film corresponding to the "cropped" image filling the video monitor.
Although the system of U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,924 provides a convenient way of displaying and composing the portion of a film image to be printed, to crop the original requires that the "deleted" portion of the image not be displayed. As the magnification and/or the cropping of the film image increases, the display shows a progressively smaller portion of the overall image. An operator may lose the perspective of the picture as less of the film image is displayed, thereby making it more difficult to compose an image of maximum effectiveness. Furthermore, the aspect ratio of a standard television screen (vertical dimension to horizontal dimension) is approximately 3:4. When the full screen shows a film image in a normal viewing orientation, the display portrays the image only as it would appear in a horizontal print format.